THE

HISTORY OF HARVARD-COLLEDGE.

PART II.

THE LIVES OF SOME EMINENT PERSONS THEREIN EDUCATED.

Discant ergo rabidi adversus Christum canes, discant eorum sectatores, qui putant ecclesiam nullos philosophos et eloquentes, nullos habuisse doctores, quanti et quales viri eam extruxerint et ornaverint, et desinant fidem nostram rusticæ tantum simplicitatis arguere suamqe potius imperitiam agnoscant.-HIERON. PRAEF. AD CATUL. DE SCRIPT. ECCLES.*

§ 1. THE great Basil mentions a certain art, of drawing many doves, by anointing the wings of a few with a fragrant ointment, and so sending them abroad, that by the fragrancy of the ointment they may allure others unto the house whereof they are themselves the domesticks. I know not how far it may have any tendency to draw others unto the religion hitherto professed and maintained in Harvard-Colledge: but I have here sent forth some of the doves belonging to that house, with the ointment of a good name upon them. And yet I should not have bestow'd the ointment of their embalm'd names, as I have done, if the God of heaven, by first bestowing the ointment of his heavenly grace upon them, had not given them to deserve it. Socrates being asked, which was the most beautiful creature in the world, answered, "A man garnished with learning." But, with his leave, a more beautiful creature is," a man garnished with vertue." Reader, I will now show thee ten men garnished with both.

§ 2. The death of those brave men that first planted New-England, would have rendred a fit emblem for the country-a beech tree with its top lopt off, and the motto ruina relinquor;+ (which tree withers when its top is lopt off!)-if Harvard-Colledge had not prevented it. But now, upon the lops of mortality, uno avulso non deficit alter. We have opportunity to write the lives of another set, who indeed had their whole growth in the soyl of New-England; persons, whom I may call cedars and fir-trees, as Jerom did Cyprian and Hilary, and other holy men, in his comment on that passage, Isa. lx. 13: "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, and the pine-tree, to beautifie the place of my sanctuary."

Let then these rabid dogs, who rave against Christ, and let those who follow the pack, all seeming to suppose that the Church has embraced no philosophers, orators and scholars, understand, how great and how many are the men who have reared and adorned her, and let them cease to call our faith nothing better than rude simplicity, and let them rather acknowledge their own despicable ignorance.-JEROME.

+ I am left a ruin.

Though one is gone, another fills its place.

CHAPTER I.

FIDES IN VITA; OR, THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN BROCK.

Olim fides erat in vitâ, magis quàm in articulorum professione.-ERASM. EPIST.†

§ 1. DESIGNING to write the lives of some learned men, who have been the issue and the honour of Harvard-Colledge, let my reader be rather admonished than scandalized by it, if the first of these lives exhibit one whose goodness was above his learning, and whose chief learning was his goodness. If one had asked Mr. John Brock that question in Antoninus, Tis oñ réxvn: “Of what art hast thou proceeded master?" he might have truly answered, 'Ayadov sivas: "My art is to be good." He was a good grammarian, chiefly in this, that he "still spoke the truth from his heart." He was a good logician, chiefly in this, that he "presented himself unto God with a reasonable service." He was a good arithmetician, chiefly in this, that he "so numbred his days as to apply his heart unto wisdom." He was a good astronomer, chiefly in this, that his "conversation was in heaven." It was chiefly by being a good Christian that he proved himself a good artist. The eulogy which Gregory the Great bestow'd on Stephen the Monk, erat hujus lingua rustica, sed docta vita; so much belong'd unto this good man, that so learned a life may well be judg'd worthy of being a written one.

§ 2. He was born at the town of Stradbrook, in the county of Suffolk, A. D. 1620. And from his own trial of early piety in himself, while he was yet a youth, he was qualified, in a more significant and efficacious manner, to recommend it unto young people, as he very much did, when he came to be old. When he was about seventeen years of age, he came to New-England, as to a nursery of piety, with his parents: and here, no sooner was he recovered of the small pox, wherein he was very nigh unto death, but another fit of sickness held him for no less than thirty weeks together; whereby the hand of Heaven ordering the furnace, prepared him for the services that he afterwards performed.

§ 3. He was admitted into Harvard-Colledge, A. D. 1643, where he studied for several years, with an exemplary diligence; being of the opin ion that, as Caleb said unto his men, "I bestow my daughter upon one of you, but he that will have her, must first win Kiriath-Sepher; i. e. a city of books;" thus, one is not worthy to have a church bestow'd upon him, until he hath some time lain before Kiriath-Sepher, and staid at some university. After five years lying here (as loth to be one of the sacerdotes momentandi,§ or modò idiotæ, mox clerici, sometimes by the ancients com

Faith in the life.

+ Faith formerly manifested itself in the life, rather than in a profession of the articles of a creed.
His speech was unpolished, but his life was wise.
Priestly minute-men.
Fools to-day, priests to-morrow.

plained of) he entred upon the work of the evangelical ministry; first at Rowly, and then at the Isle of Sholes. Here Scaliger might have indeed found "wisdom inhabiting the rocks," and here a spiritual fisherman did more than a little good among a rude company of literal ones.

§ 4. In the year 1662, he became a pastor to the church at Reading. And here he continued in the faithful discharge of his ministry, until the time that (as the ancients expressed it) "he took his journey a little before his body into another country." He wholly devoted himself unto his beloved employment; preaching on Lord's days, and on lectures at private church-meetings, and at meetings of young persons for the exercises of religion, which he mightily encouraged, as great engines to render his more publick labours effectual on the rising generation. His pastoral visits, to water what had been sown in his public labours, were also very sedulous and assiduous; and in these he managed a peculiar talent, which he had at Christian conference, whereby he did more good than some abler preachers did in the pulpit. He was herewithal so exemplary for his holiness, that our famous Mr. Mitchel would say of him, "he dwelt as near heaven as any man upon earth."

§ 5. About three or four years before his death, he was visited with a long and sore fit of sickness: but upon his restoration from that sickness, he enjoy'd a more wonderful presence of God with him in his ministry than ever before, and a more wonderful success of it. At length, he told one in his family, that he had besought this favour of Heaven: "to live but fourteen days after the publick labours of his ministry should be finished:" and he was in this thing most particularly favoured. He fell sick, and after a sickness of just fourteen days, on June 18, 1688, his friends full of sorrow for their loss might use Nazianzen's words concerning him, "Apirrara-he is flown away." But their sorrow, quòd talem amiserint,* was (to use the words of Jerom to Nepotian) accompanied with gladness, quòd talem habuerint.+

6. Good men, that labour and abound in prayer to the great God, sometimes arrive to the assurance of a particular faith for the good success of their prayer. 'Tis not a thing that never happens, that the children of God, in the midst of their supplications for this or that particular mercy, find their hearts very comfortably, but unaccountably, carried forth to a strange perswasion that they shall receive this particular mercy from the Lord; and this perswasion is not a meer notion and fancy, but a special impression from Heaven, upon the minds of the saints that are made partakers of it. This particular faith is not the attainment of every Christian, much less an endowment of every prayer. There is no real Christian but what prays in faith; his prayer hath a general faith in the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, and the mediation of Christ. But there is many a real Christian who is a stranger to the meaning of this thing:

That they should have lost so good a man.

That they should have once possessed so good a man

a particular faith for such mercies, without which a man may get safe to heaven at the last. It is here and there a Christian, whom the sovereign grace of Heaven does favour with the consolations of a particular faith: nor, if a Christian taste of these joys, may he expect more than a taste of them; they are dainties that are not every day to be feasted on: 'tis not in every prayer that the King of Heaven will admit every one to so much of intimacy with himself. Indeed, such a particular faith is not so much the duty of a Christian, as his comfort, his honour, his priviledge. There is a praying in faith, incumbent on every Christian in every prayer; but this particular faith for the bestowal of such and such desired mercies, is not incumbent on a Christian; 'tis not required of him. "Tis a vast priviledge for a Christian to be assured that the Lord will do this or that individual thing for him; however, 'tis no sin for a Christian to break off not assured of it. But it is the Holy Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that, with a singular operation, does produce in a Christian this particular faith; which indeed is near akin to the faith of miracles. Nor does the principal efficiency of the Holy Spirit, in these illapses, exclude and hinder the instrumentality of the holy angels in them: they are no doubt the holy angels that, with an inexpressible impulse, bear in upon the mind the particular faith wherewith some saints are at some times irradiated. The wondrous meltings, the mighty wrestlings, the quiet waitings, and the holy resolves, that are characters of a particular faith, which is no delusion, are the works of the Holy Spirit, wherein his holy angels may be instruments. Eminent was Mr. Brock for his mysterious excellency. This good man was one full of the Holy Spirit and faith. He had many of those things which we may call (as the martyr Cyprian call'd those communications from Heaven which often directed him in his exigencies) "Divine condescentions." And there were many notable effects of his faithful and fervent prayers, whereof the exact history is now lost, because it was not in the proper season thereof composed and preserved. Some few remarkables are not only still remembred, but also well attested.

One Thomas Bancroft lay very sick of the small pox; his distressed mother came drowned in tears to Mr. Brock: she told him, "she left her son so sick that she did not imagine ever to see him alive again;" he replied, "Sister, be of good cheer; the Lord has told me nothing of your son's dying; I'll again go with his case unto the Lord." The young man recovered, and is at this day a deacon of the church in Reading.

A child of one Arnold, about six years old, lay sick, so near dead, that they judg'd it really dead. Mr. Brock, perceiving some life in it, goes to prayer; and in his prayer used this expression: "Lord, wilt thou not grant some sign, before we leave prayer, that thou wilt, spare and heal this child? We cannot leave thee till we have it!" The child sneez'd immediately. Mr. Brock then gives thanks, and breaks off. The very next day the child visited him, and carried him a present.

When Mr. Brock lived in the Isle of Sholes, he brought the people into an agreement that, besides the Lord's-days, they would spend one day every month together in the worship of our Lord Jesus Christ. On a certain day, which by their agreement belong'd unto the exercises of religion, being arrived, the fishermen came to Mr. Brock, and asked hin that they might put by their meeting, and go a fishing, because they had lost many days by the foulness of the weather. He, seeing that without and against his consent, they resolved upon doing what they had asked of him, replied, "If you will go away, I say unto you, catch fish, if you can! But as for you that will tarry, and worship the Lord Jesus Christ this day, I will pray unto Him for you, that you may take fish till you are weary." Thirty men went away from the meeting, and five tarried. The thirty which went away from the meeting, with all their skill, could catch but four fishes; the five which tarried, went forth afterwards, and they took five hundred. The fishermen after this readily attended whatever meetings Mr. Brock appointed them.

A fisherman, who had with his boat been very helpful to carry a people over a river for the worship of God, on the Lord's-days in the Isle of Sholes, lost his boat in a storm. The poor man laments his loss to Mr. Brock; who tells him, "Go home, honest man; I'll mention the matter to the Lord; you'll have your boat again to-morrow." Mr. Brock, now considering of what a consequence this matter, that seem'd so small otherwise, might be among the untractable fishermen, made the boat an article of his prayers; and, behold, on the morrow, the poor man comes rejoycing to him, that his boat was found, the anchor of another vessel, that was undesignedly cast upon it, having strangely brought it up from the unknown bottom where it had been sunk.

When K. Charles II. sent one of his infamous creatures, whose name was Cranfield, for to be governour of Hampshire, a northern province of New-England, one of the illegal outrages committed by that Cranfield was the imprisoning of Mr. Moodey, the minister of Portsmouth. One who then lived with Mr. Brock, seeing him one morning very sorrowful, ask'd him the reason of his present sorrow. Said he, "I am very much troubled for my dear Brother Moodey, who is imprisoned by Cranfield: but I will this day seek to the Lord on his behalf, and I believe my God will hear me!" And on that very day was Mr. Moodey, (forty miles off,) by a marvellous disposal of Providence, delivered out of his imprisonment. Multitudes of such passages, whereof these are but some few gleanings, caused Mr. John Allin of Dedham to say, concerning Mr. Brock, "I scarce ever knew any man so familiar with the great God as his dear servant Brock!"